The Boy is thirteen today. THIRTEEN. I cannot believe it. We’ve spent our entire staycation doing little things here and there, so last night we had his birthday dinner at The Smokehouse, a really yummy steak house which is right across from Warner Bros. Today, we plan to hit The Grove. It’s what he wants to do! This photo is from the beach trip we took earlier in the week.

Happy Birthday!! You are such a talented kid. Keep drawing and creating so you can continue to do what you love.

Since we’ve been vacationing, I haven’t been by the computer too much so I haven’t checked my reader. However, so many of you have emailed me or checked in with me on Facebook. So glad for that because I really do miss you guys when I am not near my computer. Having a Smartphone helps.

Overall, our week has been good. Something happened mid-week though which completely freaked me out and threatened to make me crazy. I’m not sure if I will post about it or not. I probably will.

As for today, we will have tacos for dinner, chocolate cake for The Boy and The Hub and a gluten-free version for The Girl and I. I’ve been watching her lately and she doesn’t seem to be doing well with gluten. Her reaction is different from mine, but I’ll be mentioning it at her next doctor’s appointment.

As for reading… I finished The Upright Piano Player and Miss Hildreth Wore Brown. I hope to write the reviews up later today. I am about 25% into Cutting for Stone (Kindle). It’s quite different from I imagined it. In a good way.

Hope you have a great day!

Well, our little trip to the desert is over and it’s back to reality for us. Forgive me for missing all of the Read-a-Thon action. I was with you in spirit, but we didn’t have access to the Internet while we were away. It was a nice break from my laptop but I missed all of you.

I didn’t get much reading in either. I managed to finished two books while away, but I expected to finish at least one more. We listened to an audio book on the way there, but on the way back, the content became a tad inappropriate for the kids to listen to. I didn’t think they were listening until the reader dropped the “C” word and my daughter wanted to know why they were talking about a rooster. Ahem, if you think about it you’ll get it.

The good news though is that the Otter Pup did great! She loved the long car ride and did great in the other house. She almost got violated on her first visit to the dog park but she handled herself well and came out unscathed. She took turns sleeping with the kids and that went well too. She just seemed happy to be with us. I was really nervous about taking her with us but she did great. I worried for nothing.

I don’t have any pictures to share. I brought the camera and ended up not taking it out at all because the weather was cold, super windy and sand was flying around everywhere. I didn’t want to damage the lens with all that sand action going on.

Okay, I’m off to deal with my inbox. Hope you are well and that you all had a good week.

The Short of It:

Beautiful, rhythmic prose that begs to be read aloud. Vacation is a treat for the brain that’s gone soft (mine).

The Rest of It:

You know how you feel after missing the gym for say a month…or maybe even two months? You feel sort of sloggy and wonky and a bit out of sorts? Well, I’ve been feeling that way lately with my reading. Not saying that I didn’t enjoy the books, quite the opposite, but my brain needed a bit of stimulation. Something different to get the brainwaves firing again. Vacation did just that.

Myers and his wife have lived a decent life, but one night, Myers notices that his wife has gone missing. Turns out, that every evening around the same time, she becomes “absent.” She tells Myers that she needs to work late, but what he finds out, is that she spends her evenings following Gray, an old classmate of his.  Myers immediately thinks the worst. In flashbacks we see how it used to be between them:

She had touched his face when he was tired, when he had another bad day at the office. He remembered that, the way she used to do that, the way she expected nothing back, it was gentle. As nice as rain. (31)

Myers, determined to get even, decides to follow Gray as he treks across the world, but has this to say about his wife before he goes:

She had arrived as one thing, and now, as he parted, she was another, some strange folded-up broken thing—and at last he had done nothing to stop it and at the most he had caused it all. (31)

What Myers doesn’t know is that his wife (who goes through the story without a name) has no idea who Gray is, and Gray has no idea who she is. They are complete strangers to one another. Myers decides to find Gray, who has left the country. He sends him friendly emails and the two get to know one another again. They decide to meet on Corn Island, so Myers packs his things and takes a “vacation.”

What Myers doesn’t know is that Gray is suffering from an inoperable brain tumor and has no idea where he is. So as Myers corresponds with Gray via email, the quest to find Gray becomes a bit of a joke. Additionally, Gray’s ex-wife is also looking for him and Gray’s daughter, who is really not his daughter, decides to seek out her true father who happens to be a dolphin un-trainer.

Wild, eh? This book is a roller-coaster of a ride. It takes you from one side of the world to another. There are natural disasters to contend with, dolphin rescues taking place, men struggling to find out who they really are, weird, island folk and cabbies with personality. It’s sounds like an awful lot to contend with, and it is, but it makes for one, satisfying read.

Source: Purchased

Palm Desert when it's sunny!

Out by me, the kids have what is called “fall break” but this year, The Boy’s break was only two days long so we headed to Palm Desert for a weekend getaway. We also went to celebrate The Girl’s 7th birthday which is later this week. Usually this is the perfect time of year to visit. The temps are usually cooler but the skies are still blue and the sunsets are brilliant.

Well…not this time. It started with a flash flood on the way there (no pics of it) and then there was a lot of lightning which made swimming difficult even though it was a warm 95 degrees. We spent a lot of time shopping and eating, which may sound wonderful but it wasn’t the plan. Even with the rain I didn’t really get to spend much time reading. My tote bag was full of books as was my Kindle, but there were only two books that I read from and that was only once the kids crashed. I didn’t make much progress in either one of them.

Oh, and did I mention that there was no Wi-Fi? To be honest, it was nice to take a break from all of the devices that keep me connected during a normal week but I missed you all. I worried about your out-of-state moves, your four-legged friends, your kids, their kids, your health issues, etc. I’m glad to be back so I can re-connect with all of you.

On a reading note, here is what I must read within the next few weeks, and if I left one or two out it’s not surprising as I am going from memory (which is not always good).

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver ( loving it)

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (so, so hard to get through)

Kings of the Earth by Jon Clinch (loved his first book, Finn so I am looking forward to this one)

Everything is Going to Be Great by Rachel Shukert (a memoir of Shukert’s grand tour of Europe)

The Reapers are the Angels by Alden Bell (Zombies!! Lots of zombies!)

Sunset Park by Paul Auster (loved Invisible, this one comes out 11/9/10)

The Secret Lives of People in Love by Simon Van Booy (a delicious collection of short stories)

Black Hills by Dan Simmons (love Simmons but having a hard time getting into this one)

In addition to all of this reading, I have to write a paper on the poems from lit class. Yep, the lit class that I missed this week because of my weekend getaway. Don’t you worry. I’ll get it all done. I always do.

Hope your week is going well so far.

We just got back from vacation. We were supposed to spend a week in Yosemite, but we ran into a few problems:

Our first night there, we had to change rooms at midnight because the entire building was taken up by this one family and they were out and about and partying in the meadow, beating conga drums, kids running all over hell…I was not happy! This is Yosemite people!! Peace and quiet is what it’s all about…not your freakin’ conga playing. We called the front office and there was one other room available about two buildings over, so we packed up everything and changed rooms.

It was unusually warm and our room had no AC. None of the rooms in Yosemite have AC. The National Park does not allow it. This meant that our room was 94 degrees, as measured by the thermostat. NOT comfortable. We’ve been to Yosemite in the summer before and never had a problem with the heat. We couldn’t open the windows because they didn’t have screens and the bugs were HUGE. I don’t think I could have been more depressed after that first night there.

We used DEET-free bug spray and were we all eaten alive by the mosquitoes on our first day there. Then, because I have so many allergy issues anyway, I had an allergic reaction to the bites so I was swollen all over. From there on out, we used the fully-leaded DEET-filled spray but the damage was done.

We stayed for three days but I was so swollen and hot, that I just couldn’t take it anymore. I fired-up the laptop, found me a hotspot and booked us a room in San Francisco!

San Francisco was gorgeous!! It was about 70 degrees and our cheapie Comfort Inn room was actually quite nice and in a perfect location. We hit all the sights and had a blast!! We dined on chowda, seafood and I even got my Vietnamese noodle fix. We had a great time. As you know from my 100 things post, I am a huge planner so making these last minute plans is so not me, but I am so glad I did. I would have been miserable if we had stayed in Yosemite.

I managed find a bookstore too. This is Book Passage, located at the end of the Ferry building. I knew of the store from Facebook, so it was neat to visit it in person.

I didn’t buy anything though since I had just loaded up my Kindle. The Girl was working me for a puppet though. A puppet!! She’s surrounded by those luscious books and a puppet is what catches her eye. I said, “No,” in case you’re interested.

Because of all the chaos at the beginning of the vacation, I didn’t get to read more than a few chapters. Once in Frisco, I didn’t get to read at all because we were zipping all over town and never had any down time.

After many vacations I’ve learned that a few days after a vacation, can really make a difference so I asked for some additional days off.  Sort of a “vacation from the vacation.” This way, I can put things back in order, upload the pics, do a little reading and ease back into my week. There’s nothing worse than having to go back to work right after a vacation. I shudder at the thought of it.

So…I haven’t been around too much but hopefully I’ll make-up for that over the next couple of days. Hope you all had a good week and thank you for all the comments to my 100 things post. I tried to respond to as many of them as I could (from my phone), but I wasn’t always successful.

It feels good to be home! I will post the rest of the photos on Facebook for those that are interested.